Race and Beauty : Early Modern Cosmetics and the Mythology of Whiteness

This work examines how beauty standards, specifically the ideology of “fairness,” contributed to the racialization of bodies in early modern England.Schoel emphasizes the need to dismantle whiteness’s invisibility in historical criticism, noting that it has long been an unexamined norm.By focusing on the materiality of cosmetic whiteness, the text aims to disrupt colorblind ideologies and reveal the mechanisms behind white supremacy. Drawing on diverse texts like sonnets, travel literature, and medical treatises, the book discusses how light skin and hair were idealized, symbolizing Christian virtue and femininity.This rhetoric of fairness not only promoted racial hierarchies but also constructed whiteness through cosmetics like whitening creams and exfoliants.These practices, associated with Queen Elizabeth I's image and widely reproduced in theater, medicine, and household texts, led to a “cult of whiteness.” The locus of the cult was Queen Elizabeth I, whose materially constructed r